Category Archives: Law

Unloading the Duelling Constitutional Six Shooters

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Ken Parish

As far as I can tell, the position of the Australian Republic Movement ever since the failure of the 1999 Republic Referendum has effectively if tacitly been that there is no point in another referendum while the current Queen remains … Continue reading →

Posted in Law, Politics - national | 30 Comments

Neutering the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Ken Parish

This article is a follow-up to my recent long piece titled Northern Territory development, debt and deficit – the long and winding road. Urban development ideas are invariably bedevilled by community dissension, much of it uninformed and anything but constructive.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Law, Politics - Northern Territory | 1 Comment

MPs’ disqualification and Constitution section 44

Posted on May 10, 2018 by Ken Parish

I posted the piece over the fold some time ago (early January) but the fact that the federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is about to publish its report into the ongoing legal and constitutional debacle surrounding the … Continue reading →

Posted in Law, Politics - national | 7 Comments

How to tax the platform economy?

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Paul Frijters

In the engine room of nation states, ie the tax departments, the coming battle with platform providers is taking shape. Uber, airbnb, facebook, linkedin, ebay, jobseek, and a myriad of specialised platform providers facilitate micro-trades that are largely untaxed by … Continue reading →

Posted in Death and taxes, Economics and public policy, Employment, Information, Innovation, Intellectual Monopoly Privileges, Intellectual Property, IT and Internet, Law, Political theory, Politics - international, Politics - national, Public and Private Goods, regulation, Social | 20 Comments

An argument for celebrating Australian Independence Day on 9 October

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Ken Parish

We’re a weird mob, we Australians, even weirder than we were in 1957 when John O’Grady wrote his book of (roughly) that name. We celebrate Australia Day on each anniversary of the establishment by Britain of an offshore detention prison … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Law, Politics - national | 43 Comments

Stars falling from the skies*

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Ken Parish

*cross-posted from Screen Hub. The #MeToo sexual harassment tsunami generated by the unmasking of American screen industry heavyweights Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey has hit Australian shores with a vengeance.  As an old Monty Python sketch observed: ‘Nobody expects the … Continue reading →

Posted in Films and TV, Law, Media | 13 Comments

Lateral thinking on constitutional reform

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Ken Parish

Australia has a backlog of issues that will need to be resolved by constitutional referendum sooner or later: Indigenous recognition (especially the Voice to Parliament); resolving the problems caused by archaic and unworkable parliamentary disqualification rules in section 44 of … Continue reading →

Posted in Law, Politics - national | 13 Comments